This is a discussion on NEW 2012 SUBARU WRX PREMIUM OWNER! within the New Member Hangout forums, part of the Community - Meet other Enthusiasts category; So I just bought a new 2012 WRX and only one word comes to my mind... LOVE
Let me just ...

NEW 2012 SUBARU WRX PREMIUM OWNER!

So I just bought a new 2012 WRX and only one word comes to my mind... LOVE

Let me just start out by saying I am not a car whiz, I know the basics. What i do plan on is learning everything I can about my WRX so in time I can do all the maintenance on it.

When I figured out I needed a new car, (tranny went out on my 250,000 mile civic) the first thing I thought of was a Subaru. A buddy in High school had a WRX and of course, since i drove a ****ty 97' Honda civic, I was extremely jealous. I only test drove this one car and immediately fell in love. I finally have a car I can take up to Lake Tahoe to go snowboarding and won't have to worry about the vehicles reliability in snowy conditions.

Questions ---

I did not buy any further warranty's that dealership offered. One of the financial guys who was helping me recommended the 6 year / 70,000 mile warranty for more than 2,000$
I thought this was a little much even though 300$ is because of the turbo. With regular maintenance and properly taking care of my new baby, should I not even worry about a further warranty?

Other than regular maintenance (oil change, air filter change...etc...) is there anything else I can do to ensure the longevity of my Subaru?

get a few hundred miles on it before you really run it hard. when you run the car for a real long time always give the engine a few minutes to idle so your turbo has a chance to cool. they are water cooled so if your in a rush its not terrible to shut it right off. be careful with that clutch....its not the best. also remember that a turbo will one day go out. its a ware item just like a clutch.

I always look at warranties as something like insurance, which is something like gambling. You can fork over your money, and maybe it will pay off, maybe it won't. I personally prefer to have my warranty as long as possible to hopefully cover any unforeseeable events that could happen no matter how much TLC you give your car and stick to the maintenance guidelines. It all comes down to what level of peace of mind you would like to have. A WRX is a quirky car with plenty of things to go bad, but plenty of engineering to hopefully prevent that.

With that said, I would stick to doing regular maintenance as set forth by Subaru of America, and see how your car runs. Due to the fairly poor-length initial warranty Subaru offers, you will only have 3 years or less depending on how much you drive. As those 3 years come to close, see how the car has held up and you can always make a decision as to whether you'd like to extend the warranty or not. You may find that the car will need next to no work for 10+ years and all of the warranty was for nothing, but you never had to worry. Likewise you can opt to not pay for the warranty and hope that whatever money you'd spend on it could cover any future problems. Sorry for being somewhat equivocal, but it's a decision that in the end there really is no good answer. That is, unless you plan on heavily modifying the car, at which point the warranty would be fairly worthless because the dealer could find plenty of ways to deny your warranty claims.

Be sure to use the recommended 5w-30 full synthetic oil at every change. If you are doing the work yourself, you may find the first oil change can be an adventure - mine was. The factory filter may feel as if it has been glued on, so just a heads up in case this happens to you, give one of these a try: Strap Wrench. I own a few different types of filter wrenches, and that was the ONLY type that could get the factory filter off. Anyway, good luck with the car and enjoy it, it'll be a blast for sure!

get a few hundred miles on it before you really run it hard. when you run the car for a real long time always give the engine a few minutes to idle so your turbo has a chance to cool. they are water cooled so if your in a rush its not terrible to shut it right off. be careful with that clutch....its not the best. also remember that a turbo will one day go out. its a ware item just like a clutch.

There is no need to idle the car - the water still circulates after you shut it off.

Both the turbo and the clutch should last 100K easily, and double that or more is possible.

I think someone up there said not to drive hard for "a few hundred miles."

Factory recommended break-in is 1000 miles. Keep the RPMs under 4k, no hard starts or stops except in emergencies. I personally didn't go past about half throttle either during that period.

- WillFirst Mods: What to do and what not to do
Current Car: 2014 Golf TDI
Previous Cars:2012 WRB WRX Hatch, 2004 RSX-S, 1998 Grand Prix GTP
"Isn't it amazing how smart you feel when you just aren't being stupid?"

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